The first brushstroke can be the scariest moment in the whole studio. Sitting with Jamele Wright, Sr in Atlanta (@artthenewreligion), we talk about that pause right before you commit to the surface the fear of ruining it, the excitement of stepping into unknown territory, and why the next mark can feel like the farthest you’ve ever been from home.
From there we get deep into abstract art and contemporary painting: why abstraction can hold multiple conversations at once, why it asks more of the viewer, and how a painting can reward five to ten minutes of real attention before you ever read the label. We also explore how our hyper-fast culture trains us to miss nuance, and how art can be a practical tool for mindfulness, presence, and slowing down.
We connect the dots between composition, regional materials, and lived experience from Cy Twombly to Sam Gilliam to Al Loving. Jamel shares how he thinks about color theory versus what feels honest right now, why he’s drawn to silence and quiet in the studio, and how Georgia red clay becomes both pigment and history when it’s embedded into the work. We close with a candid definition of success as an artist: less about fame, more about practice, gratitude, and the simple truth that forward is a pace.
About Jamele Wright Sr.:
Jamele Wright Sr. is an Atlanta-based visual artist and professor whose work investigates the intersections of landscape, memory, and diasporic abstraction. Born and raised in Ohio, Wright moved to Atlanta at age 22, where he became an important organizer of art, jazz, and poetry events throughout the city. Seeing that many young artists lacked meaningful platforms, he founded the Neo Renaissance Art House, a grassroots gallery that nurtured and elevated a new generation of emerging creatives. This experience led him toward his own artistic path. Wright earned a B.A. in Art History from Georgia State University, focusing on African and African
American contemporary art, and later completed an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Wright’s studio practice spans Georgia red clay, Dutch wax cloth, gesture drawing, and large-scale textile installations. His work explores presence, duration, and the in-between as active structures within Black experience, often merging material experimentation with ecological and historical inquiry.
He has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Gibbes Museum of
Art in Charleston and the Albany Museum of Art, and his work is held in collections across the region. Wright has participated in residencies at Surf Point Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and MASS MoCA, and he received the Windgate Artist Fellowship at the Zuckerman Museum of Art. His public commissions include major works for the Montgomery Museum of
Art and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As a faculty member at Clark Atlanta University, Wright teaches studio practice, African American art history, writing, and professional development. He recently co-curated
Innervisions, an exhibition on Black abstraction at the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum.
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